Posts Tagged trends

Last week I wrote about the work of Neil Howe and William Strauss, who researched and analyzed generational behavior in the U.S. since the 16th Century. (Of course, it wasn’t always the U.S.) Howe and Strauss postulate that each generation follows one of four distinct patterns of behavior that are shaped by sequential and repeating eras in history. Based upon these cyclical patterns a business person can predict the future behavior of consumers and employees depending on which generation they are a member of, and what stage of life they occupy.

Over the next twenty years there will be four generations forming our U.S. society: the Boomers as Elders, Generation Xers in Midlife, the Millennials in Young Adulthood, and Homelanders in Childhood. Let’s examine what Howe and Strauss say will be the defining characteristics of these generations in the future.

Boomers as Elders

According to Howe and Strauss, Boomers are determined to transform elderhood in some meaningful way. Just as Boomers defined a new ethic of sex and procreation in their youth, they will define a new ethic of decline and death. Boomers will continue to attempt to define America’s culture, religion, and values. “Graying feminists, environmentalists, humanists, and evangelicals will impart a new passion to old enthusiasms as they rail against shopping malls, globalization, bureaucracies, pop culture, and all the other false idols of the modern world.”

They will continue to be the dominant consumers of all things cultural: theater, art, rock concerts. Boomers will continue to “overnight at monasteries, visit wineries, explore biodiverse beaches, and gaze on pristine mountains.”

Number of births in the United States, 1934 to present

Boomers will favor holistic self-care, natural foods, and alternative healing. As they age, hospitals may begin to provide natural foods, alternative medicine, and spiritual counseling. Rather than retiring far from their mid-life homes, Boomers will simply age in place, close to their families.

Boomers will forge an “anti-retirement ethic,” either by choice or necessity. Boomers have not saved as much as their parents, nor been as well insured by their employers. Boomers assume that Social Security and Medicare will be reduced, and will expect to work well past typical retirement age. Demand for high-end goods and services will remain strong but middle and low-end markets will suffer as the gap in the distribution of wealth increases.

Generation X in Midlife

Generation X will enter midlife at a time in America that will take toughness and practicality. Having had so many choices and taken so many risks in their youth, they will search for greater security in their families and jobs in their midlife.

Generation Xers will evaluate products in terms of their efficiency, convenience, and ability to be individually customized, including houses, cars, and computers. As business leaders Gen X will push efficiency and innovation. They will streamline business transactions and remove middlemen such as lawyers, accountants, and brokers. They will turn their penchant for efficiency toward areas that have been spared until now: agriculture, health care, education, and public works.

Despite this, Howe and Strauss predict that in personal finances this generation will fare even worse than the Boomers. Middle-age workers will generally be “modest-wage job hoppers who retain the flexibility to change life directions in a snap.” They will take pride in their ability to “have a life” and will try to protect their families from economic turmoil. Extremely protective of their children, they will spend the largest sum in history on the quality of their children’s education.

Millennials in Young Adulthood

According to their study, Howe and Straus expect Millennials to want to correct for the impracticality of Boomers and the risk-taking of Generation X. “Millennials will develop community norms based on rules, standards, and personal responsibility; every arena will become more mannerly, structured, and civic-minded.” They will be much closer to their parents than Boomers or Gen X, and “comarketing” to extended families will be an effective marketing strategy.

Millennials are entering the workplace under tough circumstances: saddled with large student loans, high housing costs, scarcity of jobs and low entry-level pay.

Though this generation works superbly if allowed to work in groups, employers report seeing weakness in basic job skills such as punctuality and proper dress. Millennials are interested in cooperation and organization rather than innovation or initiative. Clear goals, an ordered work environment, clear lines of authority and team projects will allow them to make maximum contribution to the workplace. However, if they perceive that they are being treated unfairly in the workplace, this generation of non-stop interaction with peers may revitalize the union movement.

Millennials will continue to expand their use of digital resources with online support groups and virtual communities.

Homelanders in Childhood

Generation Xers as parents are shaping the Homelanders in response to their own unprotected, latchkey childhoods. They will track their children by mobile digital technology, establish entertainment controls to limit their access, and schools will screen them with psychological software. They are expected to be “well-behaved and diligent – yet …innocent, risk averse, and emotionally fragile.”

And You

So what does this mean to us as business owners? Do you see ways you can use these predictions to design your products and services? Does it shed a clearer light on situations with your employees?

My main interest is the alignment of this theory with astrological principles, which I will develop further in coming posts. But the work of Howe and Strauss yields a highly interesting framework for thinking about our business futures.

A client called this morning with a question. She had unexpectedly been asked to travel overseas with a celebrated expert in a field of her interest. She is a very successful professional, well known and highly respected in her own right. In order to take this trip she would have to be away from her business for a few weeks, as well as invest time and money. She also had a concern whether her health could withstand the trip to a developing country.

Chinese Opera, Beijing. (Source:Wikipedia)

Is this an intersection between business and astrology? You bet. With an astrologer’s ability to look ahead to timing and trends, plus the in-depth knowledge of the person’s strengths, challenges, and aspirations from the natal chart, this was an ideal astrological question.

For my readers who are students of astrology I’ve included the key elements in parentheses below.

The factors that played into the decision, as shown by the astrology, are factors any businessperson can relate to:

Health issues when traveling in a foreign country

Continually improving skills through educational opportunities

Loss of income and perhaps clients due to absence

Possibility of expanding services later, diversifying knowledge, leading to increased income later

Cost

Becoming a student when she is already an established expert in her own field

The need to make sudden, unexpected, and quick decisions

What did the astrology reveal? Looking ahead to the planetary positions for the dates of her travel and comparing them with her natal chart, I could clearly see that her fears about her health while traveling were unfounded; in fact, there was likely to be a major boost to her long-term health, based on what she learned as she traveled. (Transiting Pluto in sixth opposing Jupiter/Mercury conjunction in twelfth; Jupiter/Mercury ruling sixth and twelfth)

Peruvian woman and child (Source:Wikipedia)

What she will learn on the trip will likely have a major impact on her career, probably a life-changing realization that will invigorate her career once she assimilates it. (Transiting Pluto square Mid-heaven)

It will be an excellent time for travel overseas. (Transiting Jupiter trine natal Neptune in the fourth house) In fact, she should take a good notebook along, as there is a good chance she can teach and/or publish based on what she learns. (Transiting Jupiter trine natal Neptune, ruling 9th house)

There are also a caution about power and giving over too much authority to another during the journey. (Transiting Jupiter opposing Pluto in the 2nd house) So I was able to warn her to be willing to learn, expand, and change, but to hold on to her own deep knowledge and expertise. In fact, she may teach as much as she learns!

The sudden turn of events was clearly shown in her chart, but also that she had the discrimination to make the right decision. (Transiting Saturn in Virgo in 3rd house sextile Ascendant/Uranus conjunction) It also indicated that the teacher she was traveling with would be a task-master who would require lots of detailed focus and attention – this would be no vacation!

So, all in all, I thought it an excellent idea. Her investment would be well-rewarded in learning, plus in long-term career enhancement. The decision, of course, is her own; I’m not sure at this point what she will decide. But I thought I would share an example of how an astrological advisor can support a businessperson’s decision making.

There are three planets in astrology that indicate long-term trends that affect the entire global community. They are Pluto with an orbit of 248 years, Neptune with an orbit of 168 years, and Uranus with an orbit of 84 years. In the past couple of months we’ve examined in depth the current position of Pluto in the sign of Capricorn, and Neptune in the sign of Aquarius (see sidebar under Categories), with an eye to how these energies may be affecting our business lives, and what we can do now to take advantage of these trends.

The last of these long-term influences to study is Uranus in Pisces. Uranus entered the sign of Pisces in 2003 and will permanently enter the next sign, Aries, in 2011. We’ve only got a few more months to take advantage of this trend and prepare for the next. We will definitely want to include in our 2010 business plan some strategies to assimilate the Uranus in Pisces time and transition to the Uranus in Aries time.

Uranus

Uranus represents an incredibly powerful mental dimension that, when brought into our conscious awareness, can yield startling and useful insights. In the personal mind, it appears as sudden flashes of insight and intuition that often lead to upheavals in our consciousness and are reflected in our outer lives.

I’ll never forget the first time I became aware of Uranus in my own mind. I was meditating and a thought flashed across my mind, something so fast that when I repeated it with my normal thinking “voice” it seemed like I had taken an old record and played it on the slowest speed possible. These kinds of flashes come quickly and unexpectedly. They are subtle, usually original, and occasionally profound. The key being original – they are usually insights or phrases that are completely new. Where the Mercury kind of mental activity is a rehashing and possibly creative associating of information learned in the past, Uranus brings completely original content in phrases that lead to profound insight. This can bring fundamental, revolutionary change to our lives as these insights broaden our perceptions. Uranus has been called Universal Mind, the mind that always exists behind conscious awareness, which can spark knowledge completely unknown to us until then.

But one interesting thing about the Uranian energy is that the same insight can come through many different people at the same time. Time and again scientific and artistic breakthroughs occur in different parts of the world through different people and situations, but the breakthrough is the same. This propensity of Uranus to come through not just one but many minds at the same time gives Uranus its relationship to group life and the urges in society to rebel and revolt. Mass changes in consciousness occur through this whispering into one mind and the next until a movement is ready to be born. Uranus governs change, disruption, reversals, brilliance, acceleration, eccentricity, the unique individual and the wider community. The eminent astrologer Alan Oken describes Uranus in this way:

[Uranus] serves to shake up the status quo and creates new social archetypes and paradigms.

The planet’s meaning in astrology reflects its behavior in the solar system. Uranus is known as the revolutionary planet because of its tilting, erratic orbital plane. Uranus’s axis of rotation lies on its side with respect to the plane of the Solar System. This gives it seasonal changes completely unlike those of the other major planets. Other planets can be visualized to rotate like tilted spinning tops relative to the plane of the solar system, while Uranus rotates more like a tilted rolling ball. (Cite:Wikipedia) It also spins in a direction that is the reverse of that of the other planets in our solar system.

In the next post we’ll continue looking at this fascinating planet and its role in our business lives.

Let’s look at this issue of believing in astrology.People often say, oh, I don’t believe in astrology, or they ask, do you believe in astrology?

Do you have to believe in astrology to use it in your business?There is a famous quote which is stated at the beginning of my first ephemeris (a table listing the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets over a given period of time), as follows:when comet-discoverer Halley questioned the basis of Astrology to Sir Isaac Newton, ca. 1680, Isaac Newton replied, “Sir, I have studied it, you have not!”

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines to believe as “to have confidence in the truth, value, or existence of something”.I don’t think many people start out with belief in Astrology.Confidence in its truth, value, or existence grows as they study and use it.

When I began studying Astrology, I took it up as a hobby to give my active mind something productive to think about.Astrology was fascinating, revelatory, full of mythology and psychology, the natural world and its cycles, and deeply satisfying as a subject.

I began interpreting charts for people and writing a newsletter.I soon wrote a column for the local paper, a weekly sun sign column, in which I tried to get to the heart of the messages and be of service to people in everyday life.

I began to believe in astrology when people I did not know approached me to tell me how accurate my column was for them, and how much they appreciated my advice.For the next many years I have immersed myself in my study, learning from many great astrologers.I also taught astrology and began using it for business clients.

I could see that Astrology had real value in people’s lives.The elegant connections, the synchronicities, the astounding timing accuracies, were nothing compared to the sense of relief my clients had when they began to experience the confidence that comes from trusting in the power of cycles in their business life.And from that confidence came real success, including inspiration, innovation, and profits.

In this way I came to have confidence in the value of astrology, which as the Dictionary says is a definition of believe.My belief came after my study, after my observation, and after collecting real evidence from my own business and my clients’ businesses.

You may be thinking, OK, very interesting theories, but what should I do about this trend of Pluto in Capricorn?That depends on how this trend is affecting you; where you and your business stand in relation to the cycle.

To a certain extent, your individual horoscope will determine the timing of the impact of Pluto in Capricorn on your business life.And for a more personalized and specific answer to this question you can visit an astrologer that you trust and discuss the cycle as it relates to your chart.(Or you can contact me for a consultation.)But there are a few general comments that apply to all of us, because whether or not this cycle is affecting us personally yet, it may be affecting our customers, colleagues, and employees.And our turn will come soon enough, so we may as well prepare now.

Since Pluto hastens and intensifies the processes of endings and new beginnings, it will bring about the ending of our business pursuits that are no longer suited to our growth and personal evolution.Whatever has been slowly leaking vitality will go ahead and die at this time, including old business models, practices, and products.(Note:the U.S. auto industry)But an interesting clue regarding Pluto comes from its link with the mythological phoenix, the bird that periodically goes up in flames and then is reborn from its own ashes.

If you’re undergoing the very dramatic death of a cherished business idea or idea of yourself as a successful businessperson, start digging through the ashes for your next incarnation.Remember, the phoenix is resurrected from the ashes of its former self.(One of my clients had been a very successful plumbing and heating contractor who, through no fault of his own, found himself in a bankruptcy situation because of a client’s bankruptcy.He renamed his business Phoenix Mechanical and built an even bigger and more successful business that was on much more solid footing because of the lessons he had learned.)

So dig in those ashes.What was valid from the past?What were the strengths you and your key employees brought to the process?What innovations did you make that really worked?Don’t assume that everything about the endeavor should be scrapped.There are valuable resources in that scrapheap.While the next new idea will not look exactly like the old one, it may bear more similarities than you expect.

Even if nothing so dramatic is happening now, it’s a great time to work with these energies to remove dead wood.Believe it or not, old ideas and structures that you may have abandoned but not gotten rid of can absorb a great deal of psychic energy and seep decay into the environment.Clean out those closets!Rearrange files.Close bank accounts that are inactive.Sell those vehicles you no longer use.Preempt the Pluto in Capricorn lesson.

On the positive side, write a long-term business plan.Have a succession plan in place.Save money!Work toward a business structure that will outlast your own involvement.Improve your management skills.Empower and promote the deserving.Invest your time and energy in a fair work environment that offers advancement for your best people.All these things take advantage of the times and let the universe know that you intend to glide with the current, rather than try to swim against it.

One of the most valuable insights offered by astrology is the tracking and timing of trends.Whether you are already established in business or just starting out, or beginning to look around for inspiration, understanding the trends in the marketplace is a key to success.

People were so surprised at the fall of the real estate industry, the investment banking system, the auto industry.Not astrologers.There was a period of excess dominating the economy (Pluto in Sagittarius) and the timing of the move to economic conservatism caused by revelations of what had been hidden (Pluto in Capricorn) was clear.(Pluto moved into Capricorn in January 2008.)This new era is a time of concrete expectations and practical climbing step-by-step to success, rather than the exuberant leap based on hopes and optimism which was rampant in the prior period.

We all are experiencing this return to economic conservatism and the extent we can capture this spirit in our products and the management of our businesses is the extent that we will be lined up with the tides of the time.And this is an extended period of time, until the mid 2020s.What are some of the essential aspects of this period?

·Real estate will become a good investment again, in the way it used to be:a solid, slow-growing asset that is the largest piece of most people’s financial wealth.A dependable, if illiquid investment.

·Conservation of the earth’s resources will be a major focus.

·Consolidation of power structures, perhaps merging of economies based on physical proximity, similar to the EU model.

·Destruction of many of the large business conglomerates to be replaced by similar reconstructed conglomerates.The actual new business model will wait until the next cycle (when Pluto enters Aquarius).

·And yet, more and more people will go into business for themselves.

·Dominance of markets by a few conglomerates will continue, and a social and political climate of dominance and striving to be on top will be apparent.(Sorry to my readers who hope for change in this arena soon.I’m afraid we’ve got some years to go before it is vogue to be your brother’s keeper.)

·People will be looking for new traditions and ceremonies to build into their lives.

·A very strong materialism will be apparent, with a focus on the old-fashioned and traditional, such as antiques, conventional homes.

·Even liberals will be conservative.

·Long-term planning will be more fruitful than ever, and patient, persistent effort will pay off in time.

·Services for the elderly will be more required as the baby-boomers start to get into retirement age.

·Elderly people will be working productively well into their later years, by choice or not!

·Long-term financial security will be a focus for almost everybody.

·Credit will be harder to get and more collateral will be required.

·Dressing for success will gain even more ground.

·Consumers will be risk-adverse and will respond well to money-back guarantees, warranties, and service commitments.

·Plans to pass the business to the next generation will be important.

This is a partial list only.As more comes to mind, I’ll be sure to let you know.And there are other shorter-term trends that we will examine in coming days.If you review the list again, you may get ideas of how to transition your business to the new climate.

A fundamental concept in astrology is that the great cyclic rhythms that are so apparent in our external lives, such as the seasons, the tides, the rise and fall of nations, can also be seen in more personal aspects of our lives: our relationships, our health, our work and careers. Some rhythms are daily, like night and day, some are weekly or monthly, like the moon and tides, some are annual, like the seasons. Some cycles, however, are much longer and so it is easy to lose sight of them and forget that they are operating in our lives and the lives of our businesses.

There are three major cycles that astrologers track because these cycles move slowly and have large impacts over long periods of time. In astrology they are symbolized by the planets Pluto, Neptune, and Uranus. Pluto’s complete cycle around the sun is 248 years, Neptune’s cycle is 165 years, and Uranus’ cycle is 84 years. We will look at each of these cycles over the coming days, and discuss the timing and meaning of the cycles in terms of their impact on our businesses.

Pluto’s cycle of 248 years means it stays as average of 21 years in each sign of the zodiac. However, its orbit is highly elliptical which causes it to spend more years in some signs and less in others. Pluto’s cycles’ impact masses of humanity and bring broad sweeping changes to life on the planet. Pluto progressed into the sign of Capricorn at the end of 2007, and its impacts can certainly be seen in the global environment.

As an influence, Pluto is the planet of major change and transformation. In any particular sign, Pluto reveals what is beneath the surface within the realms affected by that sign, whether for good or bad. It has been described as like lancing a boil, in order to let the poison be released and the wound heal. Pluto exposes what is secret and hidden, in some cases great riches and strengths, in other cases castles built on sand. Sometimes the process is dramatically destructive initially, but what is rebuilt is even more true to the purest energies of the sign.

So what are the energies of Capricorn, which Pluto entered a couple of years ago? Capricorn is an earth sign and so is concerned with physical, material reality, the most concrete parts of our world. As such it rules buildings, natural resources, bridges, roads and machinery. It rules the structures people build in order to preserve their physical beings and belongings such as banks, businesses, monetary systems and governments. It is an energy that is likened to a mountain goat climbing step by step up a mountain until it reaches the top. Its energy is careful, conservative, ambitious, and practical.

Say you’re a business person with many years experience, or perhaps an MBA, and you’re thinking, what does astrology have to do with me?You think, I’ve been fairly successful to date without any of this; if I invested my time and money, what value would astrology add to my success?

First of all, by working with astrology you’re in good company.People have been using astrology since the 3rd millennium B.C., by some accounts.Pharaohs, kings, popes, presidents (Ronald Reagan is a well-known example), founding fathers have all consulted astrologers to help them guide the timing of their endeavors.When President Obama recently praised people of the Middle East for the various arts and sciences that have emerged through them, such as algebra, navigation, printing, and poetry, he was referring in part to Al Khwarizmi, the father of algebra and algorithm, a Persian who was also an astrologer.Galileo, Copernicus, and Isaac Newton were astrologers.

I’m suggesting you take an empirical approach, test, experiment, and see if the return on your investment is worth the time and money.Look at it like this:there are fundamental events in our lives that no one questions, like the seasons which are due to the orbit of the earth around the sun and the tilt of the earth on its axis.You wouldn’t plant your garden in the late fall as you know that would not be a successful investment of your energy.You would wait until spring, when the natural cycle that leads to growth and harvest has begun.Day and night are also planet-based cycles and we are all biorhythmically connected to these cycles.

No one doubts the effect of day and night on human affairs.You may say this is just science, but can you honestly say you experience no difference internally between dawn and dusk?These are the same principles astrology is based upon, that there is a time and season for all endeavors, and further, that it is possible to attune our lives to these cycles so we can be sure we’re not coming when we should be going.

I live by the sea, where the daily tides have become a part of my life.If I want to swim, I go out just before low tide when there are safe pools for swimming.If I want to fish, I go out at high tide, when the fish have been rushed in by the currents and the water is deep.A good walk can be had at any tide although the route has to change, and a wedding or a picnic can combine tides and time of day for the ideal event (as I just experienced when my son got married on the beach).

This is astrology.Not just the science of what celestial body is where, but the effect of celestial movements on our lives.We can choose to learn these cycles and work with them through the use of astrology.

As businesspeople we understand cycles in our bones:economic cycles, investment cycles, seasons when we can expect solid revenue, like tax season for tax preparers, or summer for the ice cream shop.You may even have noticed the effect of full moons on your business, as customers and employees tend to be “loonier” on those days. Think about other cycles that affect your business and note them in the comments section below.We can share examples as we start to contemplate the effects of cycles on our businesses and how these tie to the cycles to astrology.

As an example of an intersection of business and astrology, this is how I picked the launch date for this blog. Once I became clear that I wanted to write this blog, I was fired up with enthusiasm about the project. I visited websites (special thanks to www.problogger.net), signed up for training (with www.blogmastermind.com), wrote an intention, and sat down to write my first entry. Instead of writing, though, I looked at the astrology for the day. It was the day after the full moon, a good day personally for clarity, but not the optimal date to launch a new endeavor.

Even though the day after the full moon can be good for disseminating information and teaching, ancient wisdom deems the next two weeks a waning time, good for research and laying roots and foundations, but not good for launching something you hope will grow and flower in the exterior world. So I looked up the planetary positions for the next new moon. The day after the new moon is a good time to begin a new endeavor and the next new moon would be in Cancer, which is compatible with my personal horoscope.

So here is the strategy I devised with the help of astrology: develop the technical knowledge I needed about the website and blogging in the two weeks before the new moon, and then launch the blog the day after the new moon. In the two weeks of preparation, I recognized the sense in waiting; there was a lot of work to do before I was ready to post my first blog! Looking at the astrology helped me to tune in to the wisdom that was hiding beneath my enthusiasm.

In other words, I took advantage of the ancient wisdom of astrology to more successfully approach a professional situation. This is a simple place to start. Many calendars show the new and full moon. Next time you have a new beginning, opening a store, hiring a new employee, launching a new product, try to coordinate it to occur within a day or two after the new moon. As farmers have known for centuries, this simple timing can insure that your endeavors are coordinated with the lunar cycle and this alignment alone will support your success.

Welcome, everyone: old friends, clients, new friends, those of you I’ve met, those I’ll meet through these pages. Welcome to a long-term, mutually beneficial conversation about the wisdom of astrology as it pertains to the success and profitability of your business.

My background includes astrology, business, taxes, accounting, financial planning, spirituality, writing, and teaching. I hold a current CPA license and Certified Financial Planner designation. My degree is in Business Administration. I owned and managed a business advisory practice in Taos, New Mexico called Taos Financial Strategies for twenty years. During that time I helped course-correct many different businesses that were facing various financial and management challenges.

From there I went on to become the Chief Financial Officer and Director of Headquarter Operations for a large international non-profit based in New York. As leader of the Executive Team, I was responsible for the Finance, Legal, Marketing, Products, Risk Management, I.T., and Strategic Planning areas. In November 2008 I decided to pursue my first love, Astrology, and merge it with my other first love, Business.

I began studying Astrology thirty-five years ago, and throughout the course of my business career, always used it to guide and enlighten me. I call this blog “Intersections” because I am interested in the points where different disciplines, philosophies, cultures, and ways of life intersect each other. In this blog we will discuss the intersection between business success and astrology.

My intention for this blog is to examine business topics from an astrological point of view, to share my own extensive experience, and to pass along to you insights that will help you understand how to use the ancient wisdom of astrology in your business.

We’ll talk about the current trends in the marketplace as shown by the cycles in the skies.

We’ll look at fascinating case studies involving the intersection of business and astrology.

We’ll have guest interviews with people who have successfully used astrology to improve their business success.

We’ll discuss current business news in light of the progress of the planets through the sky.

We’ll have a smattering of the history of astrology and how it’s been used to insure the success of rulers and presidents(!).

And we’ll always focus on how you can use astrology to make your business more enjoyable, profitable, and beneficial to your world.

About Ellen Longo

Ellen Longo

Welcome, everyone: old friends, clients, new friends, those of you I’ve met, those I’ll meet through these pages. Welcome to a long-term, mutually beneficial conversation about the wisdom of astrology as it pertains to the success and profitability of your business.

Whether you are in the start-up phase, are currently running a successful business, or planning a change, alignment with the natural cycles of the planets can inform your path.--> More

Read about Ellen’s Excellent Adventure

This is the story of how I arrived at the point of writing a blog about the intersection of business and astrology.